Decision of the Complaints Committee 16237-17 Ahmed v The Sunday Times

Summary of complaint

1. Mohammed Ahmed complained to the Independent Press
Standards Organisation that The Sunday Times breached Clause 1 (Accuracy),
Clause 2 (Privacy), Clause 3 (Harassment) and Clause 12 (Discrimination) of the
Editors’ Code of Practice in an article headlined “I’m not altruistic, I’m
pretty selfish, but I had to do something, so I took in a refugee…”, published
on 28 May 2017.

2. The article,
published in the newspaper’s magazine section, was the journalist’s
first-person account of her experience hosting the complainant, who was an
asylum seeker at the time, in her home. The writer explained that she had
wanted to offer assistance to a refugee, and a person she had met in a pub “rang
to say he’d met a Sudanese migrant, [the complainant], and perhaps I would take
him?” She described her experience as “a story of two parts, without a happy
ending”.

3. The article
included various details about the complainant’s background, including that he
was Sudanese, that he was married, and that he had told the writer's daughter
that he was “one of eighteen siblings” and that his father “married four
times”. It reported that the complainant had registered with the Home Office as
an official asylum seeker, and had an identity card, which stated that he was
not allowed to find employment but instead “got a weekly £35 living allowance
while waiting for his asylum hearing”.

4. The article
reported the journalist’s recollection of various conversations that she had
with the complainant, including an occasion when the complainant said that he
planned to treat her like his mother. The journalist said that she did not want
to be treated like a Sudanese mother as this might include “a lot of cooking,
cleaning and washing”. The journalist also recalled that she had a disagreement
with the complainant about central heating and that they had argued. The
article included the text of a letter of apology that the complainant had
written to the journalist after this argument.

5. The writer
explained that she had initially written an article about her experience while
the complainant was living with her. She had sent a draft version of this
article to the complainant’s friend, so that he could show it to the
complainant, and discuss it with him. The complainant had been distressed by
the draft, and the writer had not understood why. She had asked his friend
about it, and been told that the article had triggered the complainant’s
“paranoia”. The writer and the complainant had argued about the draft. He had
called her “heartless,” and said that she was racist and “had no feelings”. The
complainant had queried why she had written the article, speculating that it
was for financial gain. He said that his family were “very rich”, and “could
buy you up like that”. Following the argument, the journalist had arranged for
the complainant to move out of her house as she thought that he was “mad”. She
had agreed not to publish any article about the complainant while his
application for asylum was ongoing.

6. The second
part of the article was written after the complainant had moved out of the
journalist’s home, and his application for asylum had been granted. The writer
said that she felt like a “fool” for trusting the complainant, and that his
conduct showed that those who thought that he was a “bad lot” and that she had
been “insane to trust him”, were correct. The journalist set out a number of
incidents from the complainant’s time living with her which she presented as
“warning signs” about the complainant. She recalled that, while living with
her, he had suffered from various illnesses, and had regularly attended the
Accident and Emergency department at a hospital, rather than a GP surgery. The
article included details of the illnesses, and the journalist recalled giving
him a “lecture about not abusing the NHS”. She also wrote that he had asked her
on one occasion whether there was a park nearby as “he needed to buy some
dope”, and said that she believed he had smoked cannabis in her home. The
writer queried how the complainant was able to afford this when he was
“supposedly living on £35 a week”.

7. The journalist
described photographs which she said the complainant had left on her computer.
These included photographs of his journey across Europe to the UK, which the
writer said “looked more like a holiday jaunt than a desperate flight to
asylum”. The journalist also said that the complainant had left pornographic
images on her computer, and she described the content of these images.

8. The article
was published online in substantively the same format, headlined “Lynn Barber:
I took an asylum seeker into my home. It didn’t end well”. Both articles
included a picture of the complainant and the journalist together in the
journalist's house.

9. The
complainant was concerned that his life and experiences had been the focus of a
story in a national newspaper, which he considered to be an intrusion into his
privacy. He was not a public figure, and had not expected to be the subject of
an article. He had not consented to its publication. He also expressed concern
that the article might compromise his safety, and said that the publication of
his photograph together with his first name amounted to harassment.

10. The
complainant said that the article gave the impression that he was acting
dishonestly, and claiming benefits that he was not entitled to. He provided a
letter from his solicitor, confirming that he had never received a £35 weekly
allowance from the Home Office. He said that the article also included other
inaccuracies; he was one of fifteen siblings; his father had three wives; and
he was a refugee, not a migrant, as described in one instance in the article.

11. The
complainant said that the article was discriminatory towards him, because of
his refugee status. He questioned why the journalist had criticised him for
using recreational drugs and viewing pornographic material, which he noted were
unremarkable and not unusual activities within the British community. He said
that, in any event, he had not left pornographic images on the computer, and
provided a screenshot of a WhatsApp conversation between him and his friend in
support of his position.

12. The complainant also said that the reference in the article to his
use of Accident and Emergency services was discriminatory; he was not allowed
to register with a GP at the time, and was not acting illegally in using the
service. The complainant also said that the journalist’s reference to the role
of Sudanese mothers in society was discriminatory towards Sudanese women.

13. The newspaper
said that the article was a first-hand piece on a challenging topic
written by a widely acclaimed journalist of great experience and integrity, who
honestly and accurately recalled the behaviour of a non-paying guest in her house,
including information that he had voluntarily shared with her. In sharing her
story, the journalist was exercising her right to freedom of expression. She
was entitled to report her experiences and reasonably held opinions, and was
contributing to a topic of general discussion and debate. It said that the
article covered topics as wide as her own issues with trust, the "enormous
pulling power of middle-class liberal guilt" and altruism as a concept,
and the newspaper did not accept that the article had breached the Code.

14. The newspaper
said that, due to the journalist’s reputation and experience, it had no reason
to doubt the veracity of her report but nonetheless, the article was fact-checked in the
usual way, in compliance with the Code. It said that it did not contact
the complainant for his comment because the article was written one year after
the journalist had any contact with him, and she did not have his contact
details.

15. The newspaper
said that the journalist had provided an accurate account of a conversation she
had heard, in which the complainant said that he was one of eighteen siblings
and that his father had four wives; this was recorded contemporaneously in her
diary.

16. The newspaper
said that the article did not report that the complainant received a £35 weekly
living allowance. Rather, it reported that he showed the journalist his
official asylum-seeker's
card which she was told entitled the complainant to receive this allowance. The
newspaper said that the journalist had written a letter to the Home
Office stating that she was not providing the complainant with financial
support, and it was her belief that this was needed to support his claim for
the allowance.

17. The newspaper
also said that the
journalist had only referred to the complainant as a migrant when indirectly
quoting another individual, and that throughout the article she had described
him as either a refugee or an asylum seeker.

18. While it did
not accept that the article was significantly inaccurate on these points, the
newspaper said it would be willing to publish the following clarification in
the Corrections column of the newspaper:

“The subject of an article in the Magazine (I
took an asylum seeker into my home: it didn’t end well, May 28) has told us
that he is one of 15 siblings and his father had three wives, not 18 and four
as we reported, and that he did not receive a £35 a week asylum seeker’s
allowance. We are happy to make this clear.”

19. The newspaper
also said that it would be willing to publish the following clarification as a
footnote to the online article:

“Since this
article was published Mohammed has told us that he is one of 15
siblings and his father had three wives, not 18 and four as we reported, and that
he did not receive a £35 a week asylum seeker’s allowance. We are happy to make
this clear.”

20. The newspaper
said that the publication of the complainant’s first name and photograph did
not amount to harassment, and noted that his name is so common that the
reference would not identify him. The newspaper also said that the photograph
of the complainant was innocuous, that it did not reveal any private
information about him, and noted that he had not objected to being photographed
at the time.

21. The newspaper
did not accept that the article had intruded into the complainant’s privacy. It
said that the complainant did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in
relation to his behaviour, or conversations with the journalist, while staying
at her home. It noted that he was a non-paying guest in the house, and that he
had shared most of the information in the article with his host voluntarily, in
the knowledge that she was a journalist working for a major newspaper.

22. The newspaper said that the journalist was entitled to
report the common, minor ailments that the complainant had complained of, and
that these could not be viewed as private medical information in the context of
the article. It said that, in any event, there is a public interest in
discussing the use or abuse of Accident and Emergency services for such minor
conditions when the use of GP surgeries would have been more appropriate.

23. The newspaper
also said that the journalist had provided copies of the pornographic images,
which she had found on her computer. It did not accept that the complainant had
a reasonable expectation of privacy in relation to them; he had used the
journalist’s computer and internet to access them, and had not deleted them
from the computer when he had moved out of the journalist’s home.

24. The newspaper
said that it was not
discriminatory to note that the complainant had used drugs or viewed
pornography, as both are common throughout many groups in modern society. It
also said that the journalist was entitled to express her view that the
complainant was misusing Accident and Emergency services, and that she did not
discriminate against the complainant in doing so.

25. The newspaper said that it was reasonable for the
journalist to set out what she believed the role of a mother in an alternative
culture to be, given that she was being placed in a similar position by the
complainant. The newspaper said that the journalist did so without making
any prejudicial or pejorative reference to an individual, but as a form of
cultural insight and an explanation for the issues that can arise when people
from different cultures share a house together.

Relevant Code
Provisions

26. Clause 1 (Accuracy)

i) The Press must
take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted information or
images, including headlines not supported by the text.

ii) A significant
inaccuracy, misleading statement or distortion must be corrected, promptly and
with due prominence, and — where appropriate — an apology published. In cases
involving IPSO, due prominence should be as required by the regulator.

iii) A fair
opportunity to reply to significant inaccuracies should be given, when
reasonably called for.

iv)The Press,
while free to editorialise and campaign, must distinguish clearly between
comment, conjecture and fact.

Clause 2 (Privacy)

i) Everyone is
entitled to respect for his or her private and family life, home, health and
correspondence, including digital communications.

ii) Editors will
be expected to justify intrusions into any individual's private life without
consent. Account will be taken of the complainant's own public disclosures of
information.

iii) It is
unacceptable to photograph individuals, without their consent, in public or
private places where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy.

Clause 3 (Harassment)

i) Journalists
must not engage in intimidation, harassment or persistent pursuit.

ii) They must not
persist in questioning, telephoning, pursuing or photographing individuals once
asked to desist; nor remain on property when asked to leave and must not follow
them. If requested, they must identify themselves and whom they represent.

iii)
Editors must ensure these principles are observed by those working for them and
take care not to use non-compliant material from other sources.

Clause 12
(Discrimination)

i) The press must
avoid prejudicial or pejorative reference to an individual's, race, colour,
religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation or to any physical or mental
illness or disability.

27. First-person
journalism has a long history as a means to exercise the right to freedom of
expression. The article discussed the asylum process, and the experience of
asylum seekers in the UK, through the journalist’s account of the complainant’s
experiences, and her relationship with him. These were matters of considerable
public interest. When columnists share their experiences, the right to freedom
of expression may conflict with another individual’s right to privacy. Editors
must carefully balance these competing considerations in order to ensure
compliance with the Code.

28. Clause 2 of
the Code makes clear that everyone is entitled to respect for his or her
private and family life, home, health and correspondence. This reflects the
enhanced privacy rights that people have in their own homes. The Committee
rejected the newspaper’s position that, as the complainant was not paying rent,
these rights were forfeited. It also did not accept that, as his host was a
journalist, the complainant should have presumed that any information he shared
with her might be published without his consent.

29. The article
included extensive information about the complainant, relating to: his family
and personal relationships; his domestic arrangements; his financial
circumstances; his journey to the UK; his asylum application; his relationships
and interactions with the journalist, including an argument they had had, and a
letter he had written to her, expressing his feelings about the disagreement; his
psychological and physical health; his drug use; and allegations about the
possession of private, sexual material. These details were used to create a
detailed and intimate portrait of the complainant, and his life.

30.
The Code makes clear that editors are expected to justify intrusions into an
individual’s private life without consent. In considering whether any intrusion
is justified, the Committee will take into account any steps a publication has
taken to limit the extent to which an individual is identifiable. In this case,
the article effectively identified the complainant by including his first name,
and an unpixelated photograph of him.

31. The
complainant was not a public figure, and had not publicly disclosed the
information about his experiences contained in the article, or consented to the
article’s publication. The writer had agreed not to publish the article while
the complainant’s asylum claim was ongoing. The publication was aware, as
recorded in the article, that the complainant had been distressed at the idea
of being the subject of coverage in a national newspaper.

32.
The article identified the complainant and included a lot of detailed
information about his personal life and background. The extent of this detail,
published without his consent, and where no steps were taken to obscure his
identity, represented an intrusion into his private life. While the journalist was entitled to publish
her story, and the Committee recognised that the matters discussed in the
article were of significant public interest, this was not sufficient to justify
the extent of the information published about the complainant, and the
resulting intrusion into his private life; the journalist’s right to freedom of
expression did not outweigh the complainant’s right to privacy in this
instance. There was a breach of Clause 2.

33. The Committee
then turned to consider the issues raised under Clause 1. The complainant had
not been receiving the £35 living allowance, as reported in the article. The
newspaper had argued that it had been unable to verify this information with
the complainant, as the journalist did not have his contact details. However,
the journalist had not attempted to contact friends of the complainant with
whom she had previously been in touch, to obtain his contact details, or to ask
them to verify the claim that the complainant, who came from a wealthy family,
was receiving this allowance while living rent-free with the journalist. This
was used as evidence to support the journalist’s general contention that the
complainant was untrustworthy. This was therefore a significant inaccuracy, and
the failure to seek to verify this claim represented a failure to take care
over the accuracy of the article, in breach of Clause 1 (i). The newspaper had
offered to publish a clarification, setting out the complainant’s position that
he had not received this allowance. This should now be published in order to avoid
a breach of Clause 1 (ii).

34. The Committee
did not consider that the small discrepancies about the complainant’s number of
siblings and his father’s marriages were significant in this context.
Nonetheless, it welcomed the newspaper’s offer to publish a clarification on
these points.

35. Throughout
the article, the journalist had made clear that the complainant was seeking
asylum, and that his asylum claim had subsequently been granted. The one
reference to him as a “migrant”, presented as the description given by the person
who had introduced the complainant to the writer, did not suggest that the
complainant’s asylum claim was illegitimate. The article was not misleading in
its presentation of the complainant's immigration status, or his reasons for
travelling to the UK.

36. The
complainant said that the article breached Clause 3 because it published his
first name and a photograph of him. The terms of Clause 3 are designed
primarily to prohibit journalists from engaging in the intimidation, harassment
or persistent pursuit of an individual. The publication of the complainant’s
first name and photograph did not engage the terms of Clause 3.

37. The
journalist was entitled to criticise the complainant’s conduct, and did not
make any prejudicial or pejorative references to him on the basis of any
characteristics covered by the terms of Clause 12. The journalist’s reference
to Sudanese mothers in general did not relate to an individual and did not
therefore engage the terms of Clause 12.

Conclusions

38. The complaint
under Clause 1 and Clause 2 was upheld.

Remedial action
required

39. Having upheld the complaint, the
Committee considered the remedial action that should be required.

40. The clarification should now be
published, as offered, to avoid a breach of Clause 1 (ii).

41. The appropriate remedial action in response
to the breach of Clause 2 was the publication of an upheld adjudication.

42. The article had been published on
pages 16-21 of the newspaper’s magazine section. The adjudication should
therefore be published on page 16 of this section, or further forward.
Alternatively, it should be published in a position with equivalent prominence
in the main newspaper section. The prominence for publication in the main
newspaper section should be agreed with IPSO in advance.

43.The
wording of the headline to the adjudication should be agreed with IPSO in
advance, or in the absence of agreement, as determined by the Complaints
Committee. It should refer to IPSO, include the title of the newspaper, make
clear that the complaint was upheld, and refer to the subject matter of the
article.

44. The adjudication should also be
published on the newspaper’s website, with a link to the full adjudication
(including the headline) appearing on the homepage for 24 hours; it should then
be archived in the usual way. If the newspaper intends to continue to publish
the article online without amendment to remove material which does not comply
with the Code, the full text of the adjudication should also be published on
the article, beneath the headline.

45. The terms of the adjudication to be
published are as follows:

Following an article published in The Sunday Times on 28 May
2017 headlined “I’m not altruistic, I’m pretty selfish, but I had to do
something, so I took in a refugee…”, Mohammed Ahmed complained to the
Independent Press Standards Organisation that The Sunday Times had breached
Clause 2 (Privacy) of the Editors’ Code of Practice. The complaint was upheld
and IPSO has required The Sunday Times to publish this adjudication.

The article, which included the complainant’s
first name and unpixelated photograph, was the journalist’s first-person
account of her experience hosting the complainant, at the time an asylum
seeker, in her home. The article included various details about the
complainant’s background and personal life, and reported the journalist’s
recollection of various conversations that she had with the complainant. It
also included the text of a letter of apology that the complainant had written
to the journalist after they had argued.

The journalist recalled that, while living with
her, the complainant had suffered from an illness and the article included
details of the illness. She also said that the complainant had left
pornographic images on her computer, and she described the content of these
images.

The complainant was concerned that his
life and experiences had been the focus of a story in a national newspaper, which
he considered to be an intrusion into his privacy. He was not a public figure,
and had not expected to be the subject of an article. He had not consented to
its publication.

The newspaper said that the article was a
first-hand piece on a challenging topic written by a widely acclaimed
journalist of great experience and integrity. In sharing her story, the
journalist was exercising her right to freedom of expression. She was entitled
to report her experiences and opinions, and was contributing to a topic of
general discussion and debate.

The newspaper did not accept that the
article had intruded into the complainant’s privacy. It said that the
complainant did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in relation to his
behaviour, or conversations with the journalist, while staying at her home. It
noted that he was a non-paying guest in the house, and that he had shared most
of the information in the article with his host voluntarily, in the knowledge
that she was a journalist working for a major newspaper.

IPSO’s Complaints Committee emphasised
that first-person journalism has a long history as a means to exercise the
right to freedom of expression. Clause 2 of the Code makes clear that everyone
is entitled to respect for his or her private and family life, home, health and
correspondence. This reflects the enhanced privacy rights that people have in
their own homes. The
Committee rejected the newspaper’s position that, as the complainant was not
paying rent, these rights were forfeited. It also did not accept that, as his
host was a journalist, the complainant should have presumed that any
information he shared with her might be published without his consent.

The article
included extensive information about the complainant, relating to: his family
and personal relationships; his domestic arrangements; his financial
circumstances; his journey to the UK; his asylum application; his relationships
and interactions with the journalist, including an argument they had had, and a
letter he had written to her, expressing his feelings about the disagreement;
his psychological and physical health; his drug use; and allegations about the
possession of private, sexual material. These details were used to create a
detailed and intimate portrait of the complainant, and his life.

The complainant was not
a public figure, and had not publicly disclosed the information about his
experiences contained in the article, or consented to the article’s
publication.The extent of this
detail, published without his consent, and where no steps were taken to obscure
his identity, represented an intrusion into his private life. While the
journalist was entitled to publish her story, and the Committee recognised that
the matters discussed in the article were of significant public interest, this
was not sufficient to justify the extent of the information about the
complainant, and the resulting intrusion into his private life; the journalist’s
right to freedom of expression did not outweigh the complainant’s right to
privacy in this instance. There was a breach of Clause 2.

Review

The
newspaper complained to the Independent Complaints Reviewer about the process
followed by IPSO in handling this complaint. The Independent Complaints
Reviewer decided that the process was not flawed and did not uphold the request
for review.

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